Search engine using world map with whois database search restrictions

ABSTRACT

A search operation can provide geographically restricted and verified information to a user. A two-step approach is used to perform these searches. The first step is to obtain high relevance search results by searching only in a specific region defined for a search operation. The second step further improves the quality of the search results by performing contact address correlation. If the search server finds a reliable reference address in the search results, then these search results can be presented to the user, whereby search results that are not correlating well with legitimate and registered addresses for the site are removed from the search result lists. Therefore, the region-restricted search does searching in a selected geographical region and only presents legitimate web pages or search results to a user.

CROSS REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation of U.S. Utility applicationSer. No. 12/433,540, filed Apr. 30, 2009, to be issued as U.S. Pat. No.8,086,622 on Dec. 27, 2011, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S.Utility application Ser. No. 11/847,094, filed Aug. 29, 2007, now U.S.Pat. No. 8,055,671, and which claims priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) toU.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/053,670, filed May 16, 2008,all of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety forall purposes.

BACKGROUND

1. Technical Field

The present invention relates generally to Internet searches and morespecifically to geographical information based search restrictions.

2. Related Art

Searching for information on the Internet is a very common activity thatrequires the use of a browser capable of retrieving information from awebsite. Typically, a search website is accessed and search terms areprovided by typing in some free form text. A search engine receives thesearch terms and retrieves search results.

During conventional search operations that are performed using currentsearch engines, geographical information is not used as part of thesearch. Therefore, search results are returned that may provideinformation on products or services available half way around the worldand that information is often not very useful to a user. Conventionalsearch engines are not based on the concept of prioritizing or limitingsearch results based on the “distance from a user.” Often, people thatdesiring to locate a store or a service on the Internet may want to findone that is geographically close to where they live or where they arecurrently searching from. People use maps to find locations and roads totravel. However, during online searches, they are likely to retrieveinformation devoid of any sense of “proximity” to a user.

When searching based on the world map, contextually irrelevant searchresults are often displayed. Search engines based on the world mapdirectly show the search results on the map. When a search is done basedon a search string, a huge list of search results will be generated anddisplayed on the client device's screen and possibly marked on the worldmap. Oftentimes, the map window of the search engine will get clutteredwith markers corresponding to search items, mostly less relevant to thecurrent search context.

Current search engines generate a huge amount of redundant trafficduring the search operation. Most of the search results that arecommunicated to a client device are irrelevant and redundant. Theyappear in the search list just because the search string appears in orcorrelates to those WebPages. In several contexts, the user isinterested in doing the search based on the search string correlatingwith a title of a webpage, and not on the basis of search stringappearing inside the web page content. In that situation if the searchengine outputs all the WebPages containing the search string, then mostof the search results will be unusable or irrelevant to the user. Therequired or the most relevant WebPages may appear deep inside the searchresult list and the user may fail to identify and open this relevantcontent for his or her use.

In the few map based search engines that are currently available, thereis no means to control the items that show up in a search list in termsof the proximity to the user's current location. There are no means tofacilitate control on the arbitrary size of the search geographicregion, by which a user can systematically partition a large search areaon the map to smaller areas, and do the search operations moresystematically and locally on the world map. In the current searchengines the search region is selectable only to certain extent for e.g.a predefined area or a location such a city, a state, or a country.Often search results comprise of service providers or stores that do notreally exist in the region where they are purported to conduct business.Often, when searching for stores in a city, business and web pages showup during a search that are thousands of miles away from the city ofinterest.

Many online maps provide zooming functionality. User's areas of interestmay be zoomed in or out to a certain extent and the details of variouslocations (for example a restaurant) can be selected and visualized. Ifthe area or the location that is focused on is too large and/or if theuser is not aware of the topography of the area, it will be verydifficult or confusing to the user when zooming in and out on aparticular street and picking the business firm's premise/location thatthe user is looking for. In other words, it becomes difficult for theuser to pick an exact and small location from a predefined large area orlocation in the map. In this process, the location a user is searchingfor cannot be resolved properly to select the required optimal searchresults, and this issue is enhanced when there is a lot of clutterwithin a small search region of the world map.

In a search operation using current search engines, the user has nocontrol, or at best a limited control, over the search result output fora given search string. The search results presented to the user is inthe order of the relevance of the webpage to a user entered searchstring or on the basis of the popularity of the website, and not ongeographic proximity or information. This criterion built into thecurrent search engines are not always the best ones. For example if auser is looking for a restaurant in a nearby place, the search resultsshould be provided in a distance wise order of the physical address ofthe restaurant from the current location of the user. Often therestaurants located are not related to the user's location, or arelocated elsewhere but still show up in the search results.

Also, there is a large number of Internet squatters and scammer who tryto push their business illegally on the Internet. Their web links getscrawled like any other legal and authentic websites and listed duringthe search, making the user get confused or misled in picking a rightsearch item from the search result list. Current search engine have noeffective algorithms or techniques built-in that can either warn orblock/step sites that are related to the Internet squatters andscammers. Due to the lack of this function, the Internet has become ahaven for both the legal and illegal businesses. In the process, legaland authentic organizations and businesses are loosing legitimatebusiness to scam artists. Thus, the current search engines are failingin testing and blocking unauthorized or illegal businesses and there areno tests for the authenticity of a website on the Internet whenconducting searches. Thus current search engines have no way to identifyInternet squatters and scammers among legitimate business on theInternet.

The current web-based search engines do not have any built-in techniquesthat can determine the current GPS (Global Positioning System) locationof the user and mark it on the world map, or use it for searches thatare performed by the user. In that case, the user often has noindication or ability to pinpoint searches on his current location in anunknown remote city. Therefore it is hard to find, for example a closecoffee shop, even though the user is able to find some random coffeeshops that show up on his laptop during a search. This is due to a lackof an ability to incorporate GPS coordinates (longitude and latitude inangle) in searches, which is a serious drawback for user requiringgeographic-based search results.

Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditionalapproaches will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the artthrough comparison of such systems with the present invention.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed to apparatus and methods of operationthat are further described in the following Brief Description of theDrawings, the Detailed Description of the Invention, and the claims.Other features and advantages of the present invention will becomeapparent from the following detailed description of the invention madewith reference to the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a perspective block diagram of a network that facilitatessearching on the Internet with a map based searching techniqueaccompanied by search region restrictions and Whois data-basedverification of the legitimacy of search results;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating the generation of an “aggregateWhois database” derived from a plurality of separate Whois databasesmaintained by different service providers;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a plurality of domain nameservers communicating to a Whois server, wherein the Whois servermonitors domain name registration and gathers relevant data;

FIG. 4 is block diagram illustrating the generation of a “Physicaladdress versus reverse index database” and “reverse index database”using the “Physical address and Reverse index assembler” module of thesearch engine server;

FIG. 5 is an set of registration information with associated formatscollected from business registration information, such as those providedto domain registration servers and those maintained by a Whois database;

FIG. 6 is a perspective block diagram illustrating the interactions ofan “adaptive search module” of the search engine server for implementingsearch region restricted search operation;

FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrating a function of “contact addresscorrelator module” of the search engine server;

FIG. 8 is an screen snapshot of a world map based search operationsupported by a search engine server, built in accordance with thepresent invention, that incorporates a Whois database based searchregion restricted search operation;

FIG. 9 is flowchart illustrating an operation of the search engine basedon Whois database, in accordance with the present invention; and

FIG. 10 is flowchart of a method of operation, performed by a user, inusing the Whois database based search engine, in accordance the presentinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a perspective block/step diagram of a network that supportsmap-based searching of documents or Internet content. The network 101 ofFIG. 1 incorporates a search engine server 109 capable of enforcingmap-based search restrictions and a Whois database server 103 thatprovides details of the location and ownership of various websites onthe Internet. FIG. 1 deals with a mechanism where, by preprocessing userinput information, a dramatic reduction in the unwanted and unsolicitedwebpage traffic is achieved during a search operation. The reduction inthe volume of the search results arising from spurious, illegal,unwanted, and/or fake sites encountered during a search operation iseffectively implemented as a two step approach. First, a default searchregion (size) restriction is applied to the search, and second, afiltering of the spurious and unwanted sites is performed by a method ofaddress correlation. The term spurious and unwanted sites refer toInternet squatters, scammers, and/or other illegal and dangerous sites,as well as those sites that add very little value for searches on theInternet (like ad sites, spam sites, etc) in the context of user'ssearch.

One approach normally followed to contextualize the search operation inthe current search engines is by categorizing the search items atseveral levels making the search contextual, as far as is possible.Business related searches are further contextualized or associated bygeographical search restrictions. The search restrictions implemented insome embodiments of the search engines are based on the geographiclocation within or in proximity to associated default regionrestrictions (such as 10 miles around a city center). However, citysizes and areas covered by a city are not well defined, and cities, arenot uniform in size. This makes the specification of search regionrestrictions complicated. For example, if a search is made in twodifferent cities with fairly large difference in their city size, thenumber of hits will likely vary considerably between the two. Theembodiments discussed herein facilitates user-defined search regions ofarbitrary size and shapes for additional flexibility in restrictingsearch results to those areas associated with geographical regions ofinterest.

As a first step, to reduce the search results from regions of limitedinterest to a user to fewer search results of greater interest to auser, search results from a search operation are eliminated based on auser-specified region restriction criteria (or a default regionrestriction if one is needed). Thus, the search region is restrictedbased on the user's geographic preferences or choices. The main featureof a user-defined search region is its greater flexibility, so that theusers can define their own search region with convenient shape and size,with a convenient search center (i.e. the center of the search regionwith GPS (Global Positioning System) coordinates) and specificgeographic parameters that are meaningful to the user. In oneembodiment, a map can be graphically interfaced with a user whereby theuser can physically mark the shape, size, and areas to limit his searcharea and where the computer can map this traced graphical area tomeaningful search limitations that help the user narrow his search toonly certain areas of interest. Furthermore, a User can interactivelyalter the search region and relocate its center and do the searchiteratively until he finds the search objects or search restrictions ofhis choice, within some convenient distance from his current location.The flexibility of changing the search region size and location makesthe geographic-based search much more flexible for users that are mobilein today's society.

In addition to geographic restriction of search results based on userinput, a second step is employed to prevent certain useless, illegal,unwanted, and misleading websites from contaminating the search results.In addition to the search efficiency achieved by search regionrestriction, this second step will implement post processing of thesearch result based on address correlation to remove undesirable orunwanted web sites from search result lists. Firstly, when a search isperformed for a given search string, web links corresponding to thatsearch string and for the specified search region are gathered togetherin a list. Secondly, the legitimacy of the web links that are selectedis tested. The legitimacy testing is done with respect to the contactaddress of the business firm retrieved from their web links from the(reverse index) database and web pages. In order to do this, a referenceaddress (database) is derived from an aggregate Whois database that isavailable to the searching system. This reference address is consideredas the “legitimate contact address” herein. The other record of theaddress for the same business firm is from the searched webpage itself,and is called as the “webpage based contact address” herein. Thisinformation can be used to validate the authenticity of a web site orpage.

When a web link points to a web page and that link is to be eventuallyplaced into a search results list, the web page legitimacy is firsttested before it gets presented to a user as part of the search resultslists. One of the addresses in this address correlation process is acontact address of a business or firm retrieved from a webpage includedin a preliminary search result from a search conducted for a webpage. Inone embodiment, a “webpage parser” component of the search engine serverparses the webpage and recognizes and extracts the contact address fromit, and saves it (as “webpage based contact address”) for a subsequentcomparison. A “legitimate contact address parser” of the “physicaladdress and reverse index assembler module” (of the search engineserver) extracts the required “legitimate contact address” for thepurpose of the legitimacy proof of the searched item. Usually, the“legitimate contact address” is some registered business address on aformal registration site on-line, such as a formal Whois site or stateor federal governmental registration site.

A “search crawler” is employed that develops the “reverse indexdatabase” having all the searchable string (items) properly indexed andproviding a reference to the associated document or web page by means ofa URL or other reference means. A “Whois crawler” is employed by asearch engine server. This crawler will crawl a plurality of “Whoisdatabases” and develops an “aggregate Whois database.” The legitimatecontact address parser of the “physical address and reverse indexassembler” module parses all the registered entity's address andassociates them with the corresponding searchable items of the “reverseindex database.” In the process of conducting this operation, a newdatabase called a “physical address versus reverse index lookupdatabase” is generated. In some implementations, it is part of anaggregate Whois database or repository.

The “physical address versus reverse index lookup database”, not onlyindexes a searchable string (or item) to a specific host machine for itswebpage, it also points an unique physical address (same as itslegitimate contact address, enrolled or registered in the Whoisdatabase) or GPS coordinate of the corresponding business firm, to whichthat search result item corresponds to, on the world map.

As various illegal sites are not likely to possess a “legitimate contactaddress” enrolled in the Whois database, but with their names existingin the “physical address versus reverse index lookup database” (becausethey too are crawled), they will neither show up on the search resultsnor on a search result map (such as a geographical world map), nor inthe final search result list (presented in the side pane of the searchengine window). This failure to list illegal sites is because of zero ornegligible address correlation determined by a “contact addresscorrelator module” of the search engine, such as when the system iscomparing web page based content addresses to legitimate contactaddresses.

Also, a single searchable string (comprising a product name or theparticulars of an item being searched, etc.) is often associated withmultiple web links pointing to different web servers and each of the weblinks often have a legitimate contact address being enrolled in theWhois database. But, as the search region is restricted, only thoseaddresses associated with that search string that exist in thatspecified geographic location (or the search region) will show up in thesearch list (restrictions on results that show up in a search resultset), as well as on the world map (search region or search window), withother addresses that are naturally filtered. This filtering happensbecause of negligible or zero spatial (or regional) correlationdetermined by a “reverse index belongs to search region computingmodule” of the “adaptive search module” of the search engine.

The term “legitimacy” of business firm refers to a status verified viaan official registration on one or more domain-name servers (that arecrawled during a search operation) and on a “Whois server” or a “Whoisrepository.” This proper registration allows the system to perform averification service by maintaining a database of all the domain-nameregistered websites that are legitimate. In some prior search engines,many illegal links show up during a search operation. Sometimes thishappens due to the redirecting of web links. For example, illegal weblinks or a proxy web link with no value added services can appear on aregistered webpage. When the registered webpage gets crawled,automatically the illegal web links and the proxy web links also show upin the search result list. If a user's mouse clicks on those web links,they open their web pages like any legal web pages. If these illegal weblinks (that appear in the registered webpage) are directly entered inthe address bar of a network browser, the webpage presented will not bethe same as the pages obtained during a mouse clicked and opened from asearch result, often leading to an unknown or irrelevant web site,indicating that they are illegal or useless.

An “aggregate Whois database” that collects Whois data from one or moreWhois servers or databases acts as a reference database for thelegitimacy check of a business or firm that shows up during a searchoperation from having its website hosted on a server. For example, suchan aggregate Whois database has to be derived as an aggregate collectionof all the registration info/files (details or information) fromdifferent Whois databases existing in different part of the world.During the aggregation of information from one or more Whois databases,it is possible to cross check the information retrieved from more thanone source, thereby making it possible to be more accurate in terms ofcontact details of all the registered business and firms.

A large number of Whois databases are maintained by different serviceproviders on the Internet. A search engine module called a “Whoiscrawler” aggregates the contents of all the individual Whois databasesin a suitable format, giving rise to the “aggregate Whois database” thatacts like a repository accessible during a search operation to performsearch result legitimacy testing. This database can be updatedperiodically by running the Whois crawler, to reflect the changes thatoccur from time to time. Clearly, a more recent and updated aggregateWhois database that is current and all encompassing is beneficial forusers, and will result in more accurate legitimacy screening over time.

Each of the Whois databases maintained by respective service providersthat contributes to the information to the aggregate Whois database arein turn an aggregate collection of domain name registration details fromvarious “domain-name servers” (for example). The individual Whoisdatabase manages the registration process of a particular domain of aplurality of domain-name servers. For example, registrations for domainsending with .net, .com, .org, etc. may be managed by a domain-nameserver and be associated with a corresponding Whois database. Again, acrawler or a similar module on a Whois server can assemble theregistration details on all the domain-name servers and maintains it asa “Whois database,” which is subsequently crawled by the Whois crawlerto do legitimacy screening in accordance with the teachings herein.

The network 101 of FIG. 1 facilitates searching on the Internet with amap-based searching technique accompanied by search region restrictionsand a Whois data-based verification of legitimacy of search results. Inparticular, a world-map-based search engine server 109 with access toWhois data, such as from a Whois database, is able to enforce searchregion restriction to focus on a specific regional or geographical area.The network 101 comprises the search engine server 109, a plurality ofWhois database servers 103, and a plurality of client devices 107 thatare communicatively coupled together via the Internet 105 or some otherwireless, wireline, optical, or other network.

The search engine server 109 has multiple databases such as ageographical database 117 and a location database 111. The geographicaldatabase 117 further comprises at least two databases related to worldmap database 119 and a satellite database 121. The world map database119 contains the world map data in some image form or related form thatcan be viewed with different magnifications on the client device displayor another graphical user interface, if required. The satellite database121 contains the topography view of the satellite's earth surfacepicture.

The location database 111 of search engine server 109 has variousinformation that can be overlaid with the world map to precisely locatecertain positions on the world map. The GPS database 113 has GPScoordinate information for a large number of discrete points referencedon the world map at a resolution sufficient to resolve smallerstructures (for e.g. smaller buildings) on the earth's surface. Thediscrete points considered for database 113 are often arranged or set ona rectangular grid of latitude and longitude, as seen on or used for theworld map. If the grid size is small, it is easy to determine thelocation of a place precisely in terms of the GPS coordinates, and ifthe grid size is larger, there is less resolution with which to pinpointcertain points on the world map.

The “physical address versus reverse index lookup database” 115 of thelocation database 111, is the combination of the “reverse indexdatabase” 125 with the “legitimate contact address” extracted from theaggregate Whois database 123. In the process of combining and/or mergingthese databases to form the aggregate database 115, every searchablestring in the reverse index database 125 is associated with multiple weblinks (as needed) and each web link is associated with a “legitimatecontact address” that is identified from one or more sources. Thus, eachweb link has a unique geographical or physical address on the globe,which is managed and tracked to keep them up-to-date. The extraction ofthe legitimate contact address from the aggregate Whois database 123 isdone by a module called a “legitimate contact address parser,” which isdescribed in detail in FIG. 4. The “legitimate contact address parser”is a sub-module of “physical address and reverse index assembler 147shown in FIG. 1.

The reverse index database 125 is generated during the crawlingoperation performed by a search crawler 415 of FIG. 4 that is asub-module of “physical address and reverse index assembler” 147 ofFIG. 1. Not all the entries in the reverse index database 125 arelegitimate searchable items, as there are items therein that arepertaining to the illegal or illegitimate websites previously discussed.The physical address versus reverse index lookup database 115 isderivative of the “reverse index database” 125. The entries in the“physical address versus reverse index lookup database” 115 areaugmented with the legitimate contact addresses derived by the“legitimate contact address parser” 407 of FIG. 4. Therefore, theentries in the “physical address versus reverse index lookup database”115 associated with the legitimate contact addresses are the legitimatewebsites with authentic registration, and the rest or remaining entriesin database 115 are all squatters which are filtered during a searchoperation, in accordance with one embodiment taught herein.

The sub-modules of “physical address and reverse index assembler” 147 ofthe search engine server 109 performs the function of generating the“physical address versus reverse index lookup database” 115. During asearch operation if a webpage based contact address is determined to benot correlating with the contact address located in the physical addressversus reverse index lookup database 115 entries; those websites areautomatically filtered from being presented to the user, as they areillegitimate, unregistered, squatter, unwanted, or like sites. Thecontact address correlator module 149 does the function of addresscorrelation and filtering of squatters as explained later with the FIG.7.

The adaptive search module 143 performs the required mathematical and/orlogical operations for restricting searches to within the user specifiedsearch region. In one embodiment, the adaptive search module 143performs this operation interactively with the user. The user can changethe shape and size of the search region using dropdown menus and popupwindows or graphical user interfaces and functions as explained laterwith respect to FIG. 8. The search list that is presented to the userthen gets adapted with any changes or updates performed in the searchregion.

The Topography-location assembler 131 generates the various viewsrequested by the user by sending various view requests via viewinformation receiver 129. Various databases are superimposed to generatethe requested search or graphical user interface (GUI) views on theclient device's display. In one embodiment, it is possible to know thelocation of the mobile user using a search engine server module called“location finder or receiver” 137. A button interface to the user fromthe search engine window facilitates the retrieval of a mobile user'slocation on the world map in a user selected search region on the worldmap, in accordance with one embodiment. If the user is connected to theInternet via WiFi, WiMax, 3G, or other wireless protocols or a thirdparty wireless network, then the GPS location of the user can be derivedor triangulated by the received or transmitted signal processing comingto and from the mobile device. The location finder or receiver 137retrieves the user location based on the IP number of the machine ordevice through which the user is connected to the Internet.

The “search string and search region size receiver” module 133 of FIG. 1receives one or more user-entered search strings from the client device.According to one embodiment, the restricted search region shape and sizecan be provided to the search engine via the “search string and searchregion size receiver” module 133. The user selects the shape of thesearch domain, such as a square, rectangle, circle, ellipse, customshape, segmented plurality of shapes, etc., from a dropdown menu orgraphical user interface (GUI) in the search engine window from theclient device. Subsequently, if not done on a mouse or stylus interface,a pop-up window prompts the user to enter the dimensions of the searchdomain, such as the side of a square (L), length and width (L, and W) ofthe rectangle, radius (R) of the circle, major and minor axes (“a”, and“b”) of the ellipse, etc. Another option to specify the regionrestricted search operation is the complete World Wide Web, where thesearch is performed over the entire Internet. In other embodiments,searches can be specified by other geographic limiters like zip code,county lines, countries, etc.

During an Internet search session, search results are generated anddisplayed on the client device's screen. The “current session searchresult list” 139 is the search results generated for thecurrently-entered search string, and these search results are displayedon the client device in text lists, on a reference map, or in some otherform.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating the generation of an “aggregateWhois database” 123 (see FIG. 1) as derived from a plurality of Whoisdatabases maintained by different service providers over the Internet,in accordance with one embodiment. There are typically a large number ofWhois database servers created and maintained by different serviceproviders over the Internet and related/connected networks. Each one ofthese servers may be located at different geographic locations aroundthe planet. In order to use these distributed databases for the purposeof search operations as taught herein, it is sometimes helpful to poolall the databases together to get a single database called herein as an“aggregate Whois database” rather than constantly processing widelydistributed databases all over the planet.

The process of pooling the multiple databases and the reformatting thedata into a central Whois database 123 in FIG. 1 is done by a modulecalled a “Whois crawler.” The Whois crawler is run by one or moreservers and rearranges the pooled database items, preferably in acentral location or a few close-proximity locations. To remain efficienton crawl time, resources, and bandwidth, the Whois crawler also extractsonly the essential or search-useful pieces of information that arerequired during an Internet search operation. The useful pieces ofinformation extracted include all information needed to identify thenature of the business that a registered business firm is doing alongwith all or many of the forms of contact information.

In general, the generation of an “aggregate Whois database” involvesretrieving Whois data from a plurality of Whois databases maintained bydifferent service providers, and quite often the Whois databases areaccessed via an associated Whois server. A plurality of Whois servers207, 209, 211, etc. in FIG. 2 are connected to the search engine server215 via the Internet 217 (which is Internet/network 105 of FIG. 1repeated). the search engine server 215 is a portion of the server 109shown in FIG. 1 or is a separate server or plurality ofservers/blades/units associated with the server 109. The Whois crawler205 of FIG. 2 crawls through all the existing Whois servers and gathersuseful pieces of information to build an aggregate Whois database 203that is then used as the Whois database 123 of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a plurality of domain nameservers that are connected to a Whois server, wherein the Whois servermonitors domain name registration and gathers relevant data associatedtherewith, in accordance with one embodiment. There are web serversmaintained in different domains that get crawled during a searchoperation. All the web servers are registered on their domain nameservers, in accordance with whichever domain they belong to. A “domainname crawler” 315 crawls through all the registration information fromeach of the “domain name servers” in the set of servers 303 in FIG. 3,and builds a Whois database in an automated manner, which comprises theWhois domain name database 319, in accordance with one embodimentherein. An automatically built/managed Whois database can be furtherreformatted manually or by automated software to suit further and/oradditional crawling processes that aid in the building of an “aggregateWhois database.”

In general in FIG. 3, a plurality of domain name servers 307, 309, 311,etc., is communicatively coupled with a Whois server 303 via theInternet 305 (105 of FIG. 1 repeated). A “domain name crawler” 315 fromthe Whois server 303 will crawl for all the registration information anddetails from each of the plurality of domain name servers 303, whichincludes the server 307, 309, 311, etc. The resultant database is the“Whois domain name” database 319. This topology of FIG. 3 automates thecollection of Whois database information for the system of FIG. 1. Thefinal Whois database will be crawled by a Whois crawler 135 of thesearch engine server 109 of FIG. 1, resulting in the aggregate Whoisdatabase 123 of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is block diagram illustrating the generation of a “Physicaladdress versus reverse index database” and “reverse index database”using the “Physical address and Reverse index assembler” module 147 ofthe search engine server of FIG. 1. A normally generated “reverse indexdatabase” has links pointing to the web servers. It does not have anyexplicit or direct information on the geographical location of abusiness firm to which the webpage of the web link belongs. Anadditional database is thus required which will augment the entries ofthe reverse index database with the legitimate contact address. Thelegitimate contact address is the output of a parsing of the “aggregateWhois database” record(s) of a business firm. In one embodiment, the“search crawler” which builds the “reverse index database” is the partof the “physical address versus reverse index lookup database” 115 ofFIG. 1. The “search crawler” builds the “reverse index database.” TheWeb link analyzer module associates the web links in the reverse indexdatabase entries with the corresponding “legitimate contact address” andgenerates the “physical address versus reverse index lookup database.”

Now this explanation of FIG. 1 is tied to specific pieces illustrated inFIG. 4. The search engine server 403 (analogous to server 109 of FIG. 1)manages the generation of a “Physical address versus reverse indexdatabase” 411 (analogous to database 115 of FIG. 1 repeated) and“reverse index database” 409 (analogous to database 125 of FIG. 1) usingthe “Physical address and Reverse index assembler 419 (analogous to theassembler 147 of FIG. 1) module of the search engine server. Thelegitimate contact address parser 407 parses and extract the legitimatecontact address from the aggregate Whois database records correspondingto the business search string that appears indexed in the reverse indexdatabase 409. Search crawler 415 crawls the Internet as previouslydescribed.

The “web link analyzer” module 417 associates the legitimate contactaddress that was parsed with the web link of a searchable string (searchstring). An aggregate of augmented searchable string(s) and web linkentries gives rise to a new database called “physical address versusreverse index lookup database 411 (analogous to database 115 of FIG. 1).The entries in the “physical address versus reverse index lookupdatabase” 411 have all the necessary information for each of the entriessuch as a link that points to webpage and legitimate contact addressthat points to a unique geographical address or (GPS) coordinates ofthat business firm that has hosted its webpage on a web server. Thisinformation can be used to perform geographically limited or specificsearch operations and authenticate commercial, business, or other searchresults as legitimate.

FIG. 5 is a set of registration information 501 with associated formatsused to collect business registration information, such as thoseprovided to domain registration servers and those maintained by a Whoisdatabase. Such a set of registration information can be displayed, ifnecessary, in an output record viewed in a network browser window, inaccordance with the embodiments taught herein. The “legitimate contactaddress parser” 407 of FIG. 4 and that is associated with a searchengine server extracts the fields in the contact information sectionprovided by Whois databases or retrieved by a Whois crawler. In oneembodiment, registration information will also be parsed and extractedto the record of aggregate Whois database, which will help in provingthe registration authenticity of the business firm. A typical businessinformation record contains a “registration information section,” a“business information section,” and a “contact information section” asshown in FIG. 5.

The registration information section 503 has all the businessregistration related information, such as the domain name 509 in whichthe website is registered and hosted, valid registration date 511,registration code/number 513, etc.

The Business information section 505 contains a complete description ofthe business that includes detailed textual description of the business543, graphs 545, business charts 547, tables 549, images (of theproducts) 551, and other information 553, etc. The information in thissection may be graphical, pictorial, video-based, text, spreadsheets,PDFs, or other types of information.

The contact information section 507 of the business registrationinformation record contains all the information that helps in contactinga firm in all the possible forms (e.g., email, P.O. box, physicaladdress, GPS coordinates, zip code, etc. This information includes thetitle of the business 517, person's name to contact 519, street addressof the business firm 521, GPS location of the business's firm's premise523, city 525, state 527, country 529, telephone number 531, e-mailaddress 533, time zone 535, web link (webpage) 537, IP (Internetprotocol) address of the web server 539, DNS (Domain Name Server) nameof the web server 539, etc.

The typical content and associated format of a business registrationinformation record of a business firm provides several categories ofinformation when retrieved or searched on a Whois database, or viewed ina network browser window. The registration information section 503 hasregistration number domain name 509, valid registration date andduration 511, and registration code/number 513. The registration numberis a unique number that identifies the registered firm uniquely in theWhois database. The registered domain name is the name of the Internetdomain and type such as a name that ends in .net, .com, .org, etc. Theregistration duration is the period until the Whois databaseregistration remains valid, as per the subscription.

The business information section 505 has all the business details that afirm wishes to disclose publicly for promoting its business. The textualdescription 543 describes the nature of the business of the firm. Otherpieces of information that a firm may wish to publicize are data in theform graphs 545, data in the form of one or more business charts 547,data listed tables 549, images 551 of the products, etc. And apart fromand in addition to these fields is any other information 553.

The contact information section 507 contains all the information ofcontact details through which one can reach a corresponding business orfirm and inquire about their requirements. Business title 517 is a fieldthat describes the name of the business firm, as registered or publiclyadvertised. A person or executive name 519, i.e., the responsibleperson's name for the firm or a spokesperson or PR contact of theorganization or the firm. Street address 521 is the physical orgeographical address of the street and location of the firm. GlobalPositioning System (GPS) location 523 is a useful piece of theinformation that is provided and is the GPS coordinates or location onwhich the business firm premise is situated. The city 525 is the city inwhich the firm is located. State 527 and country 529 are the state andthe country to which the firm belongs to, and situated in.

Telephone number 531 (including fax number if applicable) is anotheruseful piece of information through which one can instantly reach thebusiness firm and enquire on the business details. E-mail address 533field of the contact information is used for written or emailcorrespondence. Web link 537 is the URL (Universal Resource Locator) ofthe business firm. Web server IP address 539 is the identification ofthe server that hosts the home web page(s) of the business firm. Thedomain name 541 is the name of the web server on which the businessfirm's webpage is hosted on Internet. Time zone field 535 lets somebodyknow the working office hours of the business firm or businessorganization/company.

FIG. 6 is a perspective block diagram illustrating the interactions ofan “adaptive search module” 143 of the search engine server 109 of FIG.1 for implementing search region restricted search operations, inaccordance with the geographic limiting searching taught herein. Thesearch region restrictions facilitate a contextual search operation.Unlike predefined search region restriction in the currently availablesearch engines, the user defined search region restriction facilitateson-the-fly change of the search region, arbitrarily, and on one or moreof many dimensions (e.g., geography, language, time, etc). Also as theuser's interaction inputs are preprocessed during the search operation,a lot of junk search traffic is eliminated, in accordance with theembodiments taught herein. When the search string and the region of thesearch is interactively provided by the user, only those results thatfall in the search region are retrieved into the search list, thusavoiding unnecessary searches or search results in areas/regions thatare of no interest to the user.

An algorithm implements the intersection of the search region with thesearched location addresses for a given search string all over theworld, and finally results in the formation of a search list thatcontains a subset of the search results that fall within the specifiedsearched region in the form of reduced reverse index. It is basicallythose legitimate contact addresses (Cartesian or GPS longitudinal andlatitudinal, coordinates) of the searched business firms from within thesearch region that is of relevance to the user and all other materialshould be removed from presentation in the search result list in apreferred form. The algorithm checks whether an address belongs to thespecified search region or not. If the address belongs to the searchregion set by the user or search or favorably correlates with it, thatweb link is retained in the search list otherwise it is not listed. Toimplement this algorithm we have three inputs: a search regionspecification interface with the user, search string and searchcategory, and the “physical address versus reverse index lookupdatabase” 115 of FIG. 1. The entries in the “physical address versusreverse index lookup database” are basically grouped subsets of a searchstring and multiple web links with each web link associated with thecorresponding legitimate contact address. The “reverse index belongs tosearch region” computing module 607 of FIG. 6 picks only those entriesin the database that belong to the search region, resulting in a“reduced reverse index” subset of search results for a given search,i.e., a small subset of the original database that was searched/used.The “reduced reverse index” database points to those websites in thespecified search region.

The block/step diagram 601 of FIG. 6 illustrates the functionality of an“adaptive search module” 143 of the search engine server 109 of FIG. 1.The search region specification interface 603 of FIG. 6 provides theuser interface from a search engine window on the client device, andthis module proves input to the “reverse index belongs to search regioncomputing module” 607. The physical address versus reverse index lookupdatabase 605 is another input to module 607 as shown in FIG. 6. A thirdinput to 607 is the user entered “search string and search category” 613which defines the context or scope of a search by a user.

The “reverse index belongs to the search region” computing module 607generates the “reduced reverse index” 609, as a selected subset of thedatabase 605. The web links corresponding to the entries in the “reducedreverse index” 609 constitutes the “search region restricted searchresults” 611 and are displayed on the world map within the search regionon the client device from where the user is performing the searchoperation. Search results can be displayed graphically on a map,pictorially on a GPS satellite picture, in a list, or per other userinterfacing methods.

FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrating the function of “contact addresscorrelator module” 149 of the search engine server 109 of FIG. 1.Therefore, the process of FIG. 6 finds search results that are limitedwithin the geographic or other confines of the search, and the processof FIG. 7 allows the server to limit the search results to onlylegitimate search results so that illegal, dangerous, illegitimate,etc., sites are not presented to the user as legitimate sites. Theprinciple of operation explained in this FIG. 7 allows the server tocheck whether the selected web link in the search region for thecurrently entered search string is legitimate or not. The legitimacy ofa web link and the content found therein is checked against itsregistration information in the Whois database, (or the aggregate Whoisdatabase of FIG. 1). The legitimacy is tested by comparing two pieces ofaddress records, one derived from the webpage of the search item and theother derived from the aggregate Whois database. A “contact informationcorrelation module” correlates the two address components (the addressfound in the search result web link and the address found in the Whoisdatabase) and computes a correlation coefficient as its input.

The “search accept/reject decision module” decides whether thewebpage/web-link can be retained as a legitimate web site in the ‘searchregion restricted search list” 703 or not. The decision is made using auser-entered or default machine defined confidence level factor throughan appropriate interface provided in accordance with FIG. 1. Thosecorrelation coefficient values which are greater than or equal to theconfidence level factor are retained in the “search region restrictedsearch result” list, other search results that have coefficient valuesbelow a confidence level are removed generating a “well correlatedsearch list” 715 displayed on the world map or other user interface(whereby illegitimate web search results below the default/user'sconfidence level are removed).

The block diagram 701 of FIG. 7 illustrates the function of “contactaddress correlator module” 149 of the search engine server 109 ofFIG. 1. The “search region restricted search results” 703 (same asresults 611 of FIG. 6 repeated) is provided as input to the “webpageparser” 141 of FIG. 1, which extract and gives rise to a “webpage basedcontact address” 705 in FIG. 7. The webpage based contact address 705acts as one input of the “contact information correlation module” 707.Another input to 707 is the “Whois database based legitimate contactaddress” 709 in FIG. 7. The “legitimate contact address” is the outputof “legitimate contact address parser” 407 module of FIG. 4. The“contact information correlation module” 707 compares and computes the“correlation coefficient” between the webpage based contact address andthe legitimate contact address.

A “search accept/reject decision module” 713 compares two inputs, onefrom module 707 and another from the confidence factor module 711, forspecifying, correlating, and resolving the confidence level factor forthe legitimacy of this search result. During the comparison of twocoefficients, those web links from the “search region restricted searchresults” 703 having correlation coefficient greater than or equal touser entered confidence factor from module 711 are retained, and othersearch results that have correlation values below the confidence factorare filtered out to generate a “well correlated search list” 715 (whichis then displayed on the world map or displayed via some other formatfor the user).

FIG. 8 is a screen snapshot 801 of a world-map-based search operationsupported by a search engine server, built in accordance with the priorteachings of FIGS. 1-7, that incorporates a Whois-database-basedsearch-region-restricted search operation. An option pane 807 helps auser in specifying various search options, for the view, searchcategory, search region, etc. In a search list pane 805, the searchedresults are displayed in a text form as group of ten results per view(or some other number that is convenient for the screen size and displayarea). Next ten results (or a next amount of search results N where N isan integer) can be viewed using the “Next” button provided in the samepane. A map pane 809 displays the selected view of the map (in the imageformat) along with the search results, as graphically displayed on themap or satellite picture. Normally 10 (or some finite number of) searchresults can be conveniently displayed from the search list in the searchlist pane without cluttering the graphics on a normal sized PC or TVscreen. In this pane, a user can also setup views and mark his ownplaces and save them as his “work map” and “work places” for laterreference. A menu bar 803 has all the general purpose menus availableand the tool bar contains the tools for setting the right view on themap, along with the display such as GPS coordinates and the currentscale of the map, etc.

The screen snapshot 801 provided by the search region restricted searchengine makes it possible for a user to manage the search process in anefficient manner. The menu bar 803 contains all the menus commonly usedin a network browser in which the search engine is opened (e.g., filemenus, format menus, help menus, view menus, etc). The search list pane805 has all the search results listed in the order, as shown in thefigure. The Search item-1 (859), search item-2 (857), etc. in the searchlist are ordered with a priority determined by an internal searchcriteria such as the frequency of the search string on the webpage,popularity of the webpage/search result, etc. At the bottom of thesearch list pane 805 is contained the search list groups 853 withnumbers assigned. Each group typically has 10 (or some other finitenumber of) web links in it. The number of web links in a group can alsobe set to a user defined number, and the user can use this area to clickand select different groups of search results. The user can switch tothe next group in the order by mouse clicking the “Next” button 855. Thesearch list pane also includes some of the special buttons that allowthe user to personalize the search items for later references. The workmap button 861 allows a user to store the map; normally the user usesthis button to add markers on the locations of his interest on the mapfor a quick search at a later time. Another button is the work placesbutton 863, which allows the user to save his search results on the mapto his favorites data within the search browser.

The option pane 807 enables the user to set settings of his choice onthe map during the search session. Also once settings are set, they canbe retrieved automatically during later search sessions, like a usersearch profile/setting. The search field 811 is the place where the userenters his search string for the search operation. Further, the user mayenter the name of the city in the field 815, and the country in thefield 817 if he wants to do search in some predefined locations on themap. Other geographical limiters can also be placed in FIG. 8 as anoption, such as zip code, telephone directory limitations, GPScoordinates, longitude and latitude, etc. The user provides the searchregion for the restricted search region using the button 813, whichresults in popping up of a search region menu 845 or a graphical userinterface 845 that allows the user to trace the geographical limitationson a map or satellite picture. From the search region menu in oneembodiment, the user can select various search domain shapes such as arectangle, square, circle, ellipse, World Wide Web, and search centerand limit searches over areas included within the shapes or excludedfrom those shapes. During this selection, the user will be prompted toenter the dimensions of the search domains, such as length (L) and width(W) of the rectangle, sides of the square (L), radius (R) of the circle,major axis (a) and minor axis (b) of the ellipse, search centercoordinates, etc., and the placement and use thereof (does the serverinclude or exclude search results in this region)

The “sign in” button 825 enables the user to sign in for the subscribedsearch services. Once signed in, the user has access to all hispreviously subscribed services, with his work map, work places, etc.,becoming accessible. From there a user can pay and subscribe for theservices or renew expiring services, etc. The user will also retrieveall his personalized work maps 861 and work places 863 etc., saved fromthis location, once signed in. All the personalized setups can be savedafter signing in, using the button save setup 821 for later retrieval.

Searches can be categorized using the search category 835 button. Uponmouse clicking this button, a search category menu 839 pops up fordisplay to a user. Each of the search category items in the searchcategory menu 839, such as category-1 (841), category-2 (843) etc.,results in further sub menus, wherein the user can choose thesubcategories. The choosing of one or more subcategories this makes thesearch more and more context based. The search category list containsexhaustive lists that can also be further expanded depending on theemergence of new category (e.g., new categories of business, etc.).

When the user does the restricted region search operation, for example,a search over a city; he can search for specific category of amenitiesin that location based on his needs. The local site guide button 819facilitates this feature to the user to access the location amenitiesoffered by some of the service providers registered in that location (orsite). Also, the local site guide 819 may allow an aggregator service tosubscribe businesses to a for-profit service where the business registerand classify themselves for coordinated use within the GUI of FIG. 8 sothat they are favored or specially referenced when searches areperformed for some users.

The view select sub-pane 837 facilitates the user to select the worldmap view options, communicated to the search engine server 109 of theFIG. 1. If the user has mouse clicked on the GPS button 827, then theGPS location of the cursor point on the map will be shown in the bottomtoolbar menu 847 on the GPS location display 851. The GPS coordinatesare updated when the cursor moves from one location to next, and so on.The coordinates in terms of longitude and latitude of cursor point onthe world map (view) are displayed on GPS location display 851, in thetool bar 847, in one embodiment. On one side of the toolbar 847, variousworld map display scale information 849 will be displayed in all thezoomed-in and zoomed-out views that are available.

Choosing map 829 options from the view select sub-pane 837 displays onlythe bare map (with political boundary information or other optional mapinformation). If user selects satellite view 831, the earth's satelliteview will be superimposed on the world map or replace the map view. Ifuser wants all the three view options viz., GPS 827, Map 829, andsatellite 831 views to be superimposed, he can then select overlaybutton 833 by mouse clicking.

FIG. 9 is flowchart illustrating one operation of the search engineserver, based on Whois database in accordance with FIGS. 1-8. The methodof operation 901 performed by the search engine begins at a block/step903 with the retrieval of the search string, search category, and searchregion delineation provided interactively from the user on a clientdevice. Then, at a next block/step 921, the search engine generatessearch results from within a search region selected by the user, like arectangle, a square, a circle, an ellipse, GUI-defined area, inclusionor exclusion regions, and/or all World Wide Web, along with theirdimensions and limitations. In the next block/step 905 a “search regionrestricted search results” 611 will be generated as taught in FIG. 6.

Then at a next block/step 909, the confidence level value is specifiedby a user or provided as a default and retrieved by the system. Thisvalue is used as a threshold to filter out some websites based on alegitimacy value or some other numerical rating that is computed. Thesearch results are further filtered, at a next block/step 927, based ontheir legitimacy. The determination of legitimacy depends on theirdomain name registration being crawled and stored and correlatingfavorable to actual web page search results contact address informationfound via the Internet search operation. Prior to displaying the searchresults on the map, all the useless and misleading websites and thosethat add limited value and squatter's sites are filtered from the searchresults. These illegitimate or filters websites or search results may beshown to a user just in case a mistake was made, however, these displayswill be clearly marked/identified so that the user knows these sites mayhave security or authenticity issues.

At the block/step 911, the filtering operation requires that the userenter a confidence factor interactively in step 909. This factor iscompared with the computed correlation factor between the “webpage basedcontact address” and the “legitimate contact address.” If the computedcorrelation factor is greater than or equal to the confidence levelfactor, those web links will be considered for display in the searchresult list. The search engine retrieves various databases that arerequired to generate the user requested view in the map pane 809 of FIG.8. The topography-link assembler module 131 of FIG. 1 assembles all thedata sets from different databases like GPS, map, and satellitedatabases to generate the requested view in the map pane 809. Asatellite picture of the earth's surface overlaid on the map gives amore realistic view to the displayed search results. The search enginehighlights all the displayed items within the selected search region,and may tag them with useful graphical or textual information. Thecurrent location of the user will be found or received and physicallymapped on the world map, if requested, in accordance one embodiment.

Another method of operation performed by a search engine server tofacilitate the search region restricted search operation comprisesseveral steps of filtering out unwanted or useless websites, weeding outpotential spam websites, etc. The search engine receives the searchstring and the search category information at a block/step 903.Subsequently, at a next block/step 921, it receives the geographicsearch region information such as the search region dimension and itsshape. At a next block/step 905, it generates the search results byexecuting the “adaptive search module 143 of FIG. 1 with “physicaladdress versus reverse index lookup database” 115 of FIG. 1 as input.Then the search engine performs the search operation at 905 andgenerates the search result list. The search results that are obtainedat block/step 905 are the “search region restricted search results” 611as discussed with FIG. 6.

Then, at a next block/step 909, the user's specification (or a defaultspecification) of a confidence level factor is received. The filteringoperation requires that the user enter a confidence level factorinteractively at block/step 909. This factor is compared with thecomputed correlation factor between the “webpage based contact address”and the “legitimate contact address” at a next block/step 927. If thecomputed correlation factor is greater than or equal to the confidencelevel factor those web links will be considered for display in thesearch result list, otherwise it will be filtered out at the block/step911. The search results at this stage are the “well correlated searchlist” 715 of FIG. 7, displayed on the client device at 923.

The search engine server retrieves the GPS database 113 and physical (orlegitimate contact) address information at the block/step 913. Next, thesearch engine sever assembles the GPS database 113 and the physicaladdress from location database 111 of FIG. 1, at the block/step 915.Subsequently, the requested view of search results will be assembled bytopography-link assembler 131 of FIG. 1 at the block/step 915. The viewof the map display will be modified using the GPS database 113, mapdatabase 119, satellite database 121 of FIG. 1, at the next block/step925 if the satellite image of the earth's topography is requested by theuser.

FIG. 10 is flowchart of a method of operation 1001, performed by a user,when using the Whois database based search engine, taught herein. Theuser typically performs the following sequence of operations using a“search restricted world map based search engine.” The search operationstarts with the user entering the search string and category, anddefining the search region from the search engine window on the clientdevice. Then, the search engine returns the search results from withinthe search region chosen by the user on the world map. In this process,due to the use of the internal reference aggregate Whois database, allthe unwanted sites are automatically filtered or especiallytagged/identified, as explained earlier with respect to FIGS. 6 and 7and the method of FIG. 9.

Subsequently, a user can perform the required search result interactionwith the websites indicated on the world map. A User may want to knowmore about the website he has visited, and also add markers to indicatehis own landmarks and references on the world map and save them forlater references. He can personalize the search settings and currentviews and save them for later search/use sessions.

The method 1001 starts at the first block/step 1003 where the userenters a search string. The user's interactions with the searchrestricted search engine server that are used for personalizing thesearch views and the search session setup are of interest in thismethod. A user enters the search string and search region or domain atthe block/step 1003 into the search engine. In response to this, thesearch engine returns the search results and displays them on the worldmap within a region restricted or defined by the user. The user selectsthe displayed search items and browse at the next block/step 1005 formore information.

During the browsing operations a user can interact with the searchengine in number of ways. In accordance with one embodiment, a userdecides to mark a place on the map at the next block/step 1007, then ifhe so desires, he adds a marker at the next block/step 1019. If the usersubsequently wants to add the site on the map into the favorite list headds this at a next block/step 1021.

Once the search results are generated, the user can vary the searchregion or the domain size, and see if there are any interesting or morefocused search items in the newer (bigger or smaller) search dimensions.A user may decide to vary the search domain size at the next block/step1011, if required he will vary the current search region size at a nextblock/step 1023. If the user altogether wants to try a different searchregion shape from the previous choice, (for e.g. rectangular domainreplaced by a circular one), the user decides at the next decisionblock/step 1013; if a user wants to, the user then defines new domain ata next block/step 1025; else the operation, based on the user's choice,moves to the next decision block/step 1015.

At the block/step 1015, the user may decide on whether they want toconduct a new search, (probably, by a new search string); if the user sodesires, the user enters a new search string and new search domain atthe next block/step 1003 again, and repeats the whole sequence of themethod of operation. Else, the search ends at the next 1017.

As one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate, the terms “operablycoupled” and “communicatively coupled,” as may be used herein, includedirect coupling and indirect coupling via another component, element,circuit, or module where, for indirect coupling, the interveningcomponent, element, circuit, or module may or may not modify theinformation of a signal and may adjust its current level, voltage level,and/or power level. As one of ordinary skill in the art will alsoappreciate, inferred coupling (i.e., where one element is coupled toanother element by inference) includes direct and indirect couplingbetween two elements in the same manner as “operably coupled” and“communicatively coupled.”

The present invention has also been described above with the aid ofmethod steps illustrating the performance of specified functions andrelationships thereof. The boundaries and sequence of these functionalbuilding blocks and method steps have been arbitrarily defined hereinfor convenience of description, and can be apportioned and ordered indifferent ways in other embodiments within the scope of the teachingsherein. Alternate boundaries and sequences can be defined so long ascertain specified functions and relationships are appropriatelyperformed/present. Any such alternate boundaries or sequences are thuswithin the scope and spirit of the claimed invention.

The present invention has been described above with the aid offunctional building block/steps illustrating the performance of certainsignificant functions. The boundaries of these functional buildingblock/steps have been arbitrarily defined for convenience ofdescription. Alternate boundaries could be defined as long as thecertain significant functions are appropriately performed. Similarly,flow diagram block/steps may also have been arbitrarily defined hereinto illustrate certain significant functionality. To the extent used, theflow diagram block/step boundaries and sequence could have been definedotherwise and still perform the certain significant functionality. Suchalternate definitions of both functional building block/steps and flowdiagram block/steps and sequences are thus within the scope and spiritof the claimed invention. Although the Internet is taught herein, theInternet may be configured in one of many different manners, may containmany different types of equipment in different configurations, and mayreplaced or augmented with any network or communication protocol of anykind. Furthermore, client devices are often taught and depicted hereinas laptop computers or personal computers (PCs), however, client devicescan be cell phones, smart phones, palmtop computers, laptop computers,netbooks, mobile internet devices, point of sale devices, GPS systems,appliances, home security systems, DTVs, set top boxes, portable orfixed game consoles, workstations, supercomputers, other servers,personal device assistants (PDAs), or any other electronic device usedby an end user.

One of average skill in the art will also recognize that the functionalbuilding block/steps, and other illustrative block/steps, modules andcomponents herein, can be implemented as illustrated or by discretecomponents, application specific integrated circuits, processorsexecuting appropriate software and the like or any combination thereof.The search results herein are taught as business, organizations,partnerships, stores, etc. It is important to not that when these termsare used, they can mean an individual (e.g., hairdresser, doctor, etc.),partnerships, incorporated business, government entity, foreigncorporation, or any other form for conducting business, sellingproducts, or providing services. Furthermore, the order of claimed stepsand steps in methods may be changed. For example, it is largely taughtherein that search results are first found by finding correlation to asearch criteria or string and then limiting those search results bygeography. There is nothing preventing this selection process from beingdone in reverse or another order, for example, all businesses in thegeographic area may be found first, and they that list can be limited byapplicability to the search criteria.

Moreover, although described in detail for purposes of clarity andunderstanding by way of the aforementioned embodiments, the presentinvention is not limited to such embodiments. It will be obvious to oneof average skill in the art that various changes and modifications maybe practiced within the spirit and scope of the invention, as limitedonly by the scope of the appended claims.

1. A search engine server that facilitates searching for content on theInternet, the search engine server comprising: a reverse index databaseoperable to store search results corresponding to search criteria andthat include entries associated with at least one business or at leastone organization; an assembler operable to correlate contact informationreceived from a Whois database server with businesses or organizationsof the reverse index database to populate an aggregate database; anadaptive search module operable to: determine location information forthe user; receive search criteria from the user; perform a search of theaggregate database using the search criteria to produce search results;determine correlation data indicating whether contact informationcorresponding to the search result entries is local to the locationinformation for the user; determine whether the correlation data meets aconfidence level factor; and when the correlation data meets theconfidence level factor, restricting the search results to entries whoseassociated business or organization location is in geographicalproximity to the user.
 2. The search engine server of claim 1, whereinthe confidence level factor is based on both geographical proximityidentifier and organization contact information supplied by the Whoisdatabase server.
 3. The search engine server of claim 1, wherein thecontact information comprises at least one of a city name, a state name,a country code, a telephone number, and a GPS location.
 4. The searchengine server of claim 1, wherein the contact information comprisesownership information for a corresponding domain associated the at leastone of the entries of the search results, the search engine serverfurther operable to: determine a total number of domains registered bythe organization with the same or similar ownership information; assigna priority to the corresponding one of the entries of the search resultin response to the total number of domains being determined to be over athreshold number; and employing the priority to determine the inclusionof the at least one of the entries into the search results.
 5. Thesearch engine server of claim 1, further comprising a Whois crawlermodule that is operable to: crawl through a plurality of Whois databasesto retrieve Whois information; populate a Whois database using the Whoisinformation; and retrieve the organization contact information from theWhois database; and wherein the search engine server uses theorganization contact information to determine the correlation data. 6.The search engine server of claim 5, wherein: the search criteria isreceived by the search engine server from the client; the searchcriteria comprises a search string and a search region; the searchengine server sets a search category information and a search regionrestriction for the user based on the search criteria; and the adaptivesearch module generates the search results based on the search criteria,the search category information, and the search region restriction. 7.The search engine server of claim 1: further comprising a locationfinder module operable to generate geographical mapping information thatmaps at least one of the entries with respect to a current location ofthe user on a map structure; and wherein the search engine servercommunicates restricted search results with the geographical mappinginformation to the client.
 8. A method performed by a search engineserver that is communicatively coupled to at least one client device ofa user, the method comprising: storing search results corresponding tosearch criteria in a reverse index database, the search resultsincluding entries associated with at least one business or at least oneorganization; correlating contact information received from a Whoisdatabase server with businesses or organizations of the reverse indexdatabase to populate an aggregate database; determining locationinformation for the user; receiving search criteria from the user;performing a search of the aggregate database using the search criteriato produce search results; determining correlation data indicatingwhether contact information corresponding to the search result entriesis local to the location information for the user; determining whetherthe correlation data meets a confidence level factor; and when thecorrelation data meets the confidence level factor, restricting thesearch results to entries whose associated business or organizationlocation is in geographical proximity to the user.
 9. The method ofclaim 8, wherein the confidence level factor is based on bothgeographical proximity identifier and organization contact informationsupplied by the Whois database server.
 10. The method of claim 8,wherein the contact information comprises at least one of a city name, astate name, a country code, a telephone number, and a GPS location. 11.The method of claim 8, wherein the contact information comprisesownership information for a corresponding domain associated the at leastone of the entries of the search results, the method further comprising:determining a total number of domains registered by the organizationwith the same or similar ownership information; assigning a priority tothe corresponding one of the entries of the search result in response tothe total number of domains being determined to be over a thresholdnumber; and employing the priority to determine the inclusion of the atleast one of the entries into the search results.
 12. The method ofclaim 8, further: crawling through a plurality of Whois databases toretrieve Whois information; populating a Whois database using the Whoisinformation; and retrieving the organization contact information fromthe Whois database; and wherein the organization contact information isused to determine the correlation data.
 13. The method of claim 12:wherein: the search criteria is received from the client; and the searchcriteria comprises a search string and a search region; and furthercomprising: setting search category information and a search regionrestriction for the user based on the search criteria; and generatingthe search results based on the search criteria, the search categoryinformation, and the search region restriction.
 14. The method of claim8, further comprising: generating geographical mapping information thatmaps at least one of the entries with respect to a current location ofthe user on a map structure; and communicating the restricted searchresults with the geographical mapping information to the client.
 15. Amethod performed by a search engine server that is communicativelycoupled to at least one client device of a user, the method comprising:crawling through a plurality of Whois databases to retrieve Whoisinformation; populating a Whois database using the Whois information;and storing search results corresponding to search criteria in a reverseindex database, the search results including entries associated with atleast one business or at least one organization; retrieving contactinformation from the Whois database; correlating the contact informationreceived from the Whois database server with businesses or organizationsof the reverse index database to populate an aggregate database;determining location information for the user; receiving search criteriafrom the user; performing a search of the aggregate database using thesearch criteria to produce search results; determining correlation dataindicating whether contact information corresponding to the searchresult entries is local to the location information for the user;determining whether the correlation data meets a confidence levelfactor; and when the correlation data meets the confidence level factor,restricting the search results to entries whose associated business ororganization location is in geographical proximity to the user.
 16. Themethod of claim 15, wherein the confidence level factor is based on bothgeographical proximity identifier and organization contact informationsupplied by the Whois database server.
 17. The method of claim 15,wherein the contact information comprises at least one of a city name, astate name, a country code, a telephone number, and a GPS location. 18.The method of claim 15, wherein the contact information comprisesownership information for a corresponding domain associated the at leastone of the entries of the search results, the method further comprising:determining a total number of domains registered by the organizationwith the same or similar ownership information; assigning a priority tothe corresponding one of the entries of the search result in response tothe total number of domains being determined to be over a thresholdnumber; and employing the priority to determine the inclusion of the atleast one of the entries into the search results.
 19. The method ofclaim 15: wherein: the search criteria is received from the client; andthe search criteria comprises a search string and a search region; andfurther comprising: setting search category information and a searchregion restriction for the user based on the search criteria; andgenerating the search results based on the search criteria, the searchcategory information, and the search region restriction.
 20. The methodof claim 15, further comprising: generating geographical mappinginformation that maps at least one of the entries with respect to acurrent location of the user on a map structure; and communicating therestricted search results with the geographical mapping information tothe client.